Sheffield Steelers suffer yet again at the hands of Edinburgh Capitals

After a 4-2 win over Dundee Stars on Saturday night at Ice Sheffield, the South Yorkshire club’s recently-discovered knack of conceding goals – 28 in the last seven games – struck again in Scotland on Sunday night as they went down 7-5 against Edinburgh Capitals.

It was the second defeat against Edinburgh in as many meetings for Elite League defending champions Steelers, the Scottish side winning 5-4 in overtime when they visited South Yorkshire last month.

The most annoying thing for head coach Thompson was that his players had seemingley learned nothing from that first meeting of the season between the two teams at Ice Sheffield

“We played right into their hands and Edinburgh deserved their victory,” said Thompson following the 7-5 loss in Scotland on Sunday

“It’s very frustrating because there is no need for it. What happened tonight was the same as when we played them last time. We learned nothing.”

After finding themselves 3-0 down after just over 10 minutes, Thompson was critical of his players’ gung-ho approach early on.

“We don’t need to try and win a game in the first few minutes,” he added. “Our conditioning is excellent, we can play for the whole 60. Look at tonight - we dominated the end of the game when they were hanging on. We didn’t need to take the chances we did early on.

“Offensively Edinburgh is as good as we will face, you can’t give them a 3-0 lead because as you fight back you will naturally give up more chances as we did tonight – 3-0 became 3-2 but we pressed and it became 5-2.

“We are creating our own problems, but you have to give the Caps credit.

“We won’t hide from our issues, we will work through them. It’s not a matter of changing personnel, its a matter of changing the mindset. That is what i have to work on.”

Twice the Steelers went three goals behind at Murrayfield, a dreadful start seeing goals from Paul Zanette, Nate Fleming and Craig McCallum flying past replacement No 1 goaltender Marek Pinc before 11 minutes had passed.

Mathieu Roy and Jeff Legue replied before the first break arrived, only for the hosts to restore their advantage through second-period goals from Ryan Hayes and McCallum.

Tyler Mosienko’s 11th of the season gave Steelers hope 15 seconds before the end of the second period and, with just under 10 minutes remaining, the visitors had restored parity through Roy’s second of the night and a seventh of the season for Chris Lawrence.

But McCallum’s hat-trick goal at 55.37 proved to be the game-clincher, with Hayes adding an empty-netter to leave Steelers facing a long, miserable bus ride home in the early hours.

Just over 24 hours earlier, the Steelers had controlled a potentially tricky encounter with Dundee, racing into a two-goal lead after less than six minutes through goals from Robert Dowd and Levi Nelson.

But less than two minutes of the second period had elapsed before the Stars were level, Lou Dickenson’s short-handed effort complimenting David Turon’s ninth-minute strike.

Roy was on hand to restore the Steelers’ lead at 32.52 before Dowd’s second of the night early in the third ensured two points for the hosts.

Results elsewhere over the weekend leave Steelers in fourth spot in the overall Elite League standings, six points adrift of Belfast Giants – who won 2-1 in Manchester on a shoot-out – but with three games in hand.

Nottingham who beat Belfast 4-3 on Saturday, were without a game on Sunday night, dropped to second as a result of the Giants’ success in Manchester.

Corey Neilson’s side are five points ahead of Steelers, both teams having played the same number of games.

RESULTS
SUNDAY, Elite League: Dundee Stars 6 Fife Flyers 3, Edinburgh Capitals 7 Sheffield Steelers 5, Manchester Storm 1 Belfast Giants 2 (PS)

Challenge Cup Group B: Coventry Blaze 4 Cardiff Devils 6.

SATURDAY

Elite League: Braehead Clan 6 Coventry Blaze 0, Cardiff Devils 5 Manchester Storm 2, Fife Flyers 8 Edinburgh Capitals 3, Nottingham Panthers 4 Belfast Giants 3, Sheffield Steelers 4 Dundee Stars 2.